Okay, this is gonna be kinda weird for both of us. I’m sending this letter back in time (25 years) to you because there’s some stuff happening here in the future that you just aren’t gonna believe. No, seriously, this stuff is nuts and I want you to start getting ready in 2000 for some of these developments in 2025.
First—and you won’t believe this, so you’d better be sitting down—we have driverless cars. They’re safer than human drivers in many conditions, and the newest models don’t even have a steering wheel or pedals. They’re battery operated, safe, convenient, and can go about 350 miles before they need to be recharged. It’s basically a driverless taxi that doesn’t smell like coconut and weed. Pretty soon nobody will even own a car. The same company is building legit robots. By next year we’ll have over 1 million of them in use. They look like the Star Wars droid C-3Po.
In my front pocket I’m carrying a smartphone made by Apple Computer. It has 1TB of storage. That’s the equivalent of 694,444 floppy disks. Stacked together they’d be 10 times taller than Atlanta’s Peachtree Plaza hotel. I can make calls on it. No biggie, right? Well, hold on—it’s also a camera that can hold 250,000 photos. It can hold 1,428 music CD’s, surf the internet, hail taxis, order food, track health stats, and handle all our banking.
Sounds great, right? The downside is that these things have taken over our lives. The average American spends 7-10 hours a day on smartphones and other screens. Everyone stares at their phones constantly like zombies. Most people even take their smartphone to the toilet with them. Yeah, it’s that bad.
We have unmanned rockets—reusable ones built by the private sector. A single Falcon 9 rocket will do more launches and carry more payload to orbit this year than the entire Space Shuttle program did in its history. We also have space tourism. For about $500,000 you can go up in one of these rockets. If you think we might wanna go up, put $2,500 into Apple stock today. It’ll be worth $500,000 in 25 years. You’re welcome.
The results of the Presidential election later this year won’t be known until 36 days after the polls close. It’s complicated. New York real estate developer Donald Trump decides not to run in 2000 after all. But wait, in about 17 years Donald Trump runs for President and wins. He runs in 2024 and wins again. The new President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is still in power today. Don’t be fooled by him. He’s responsible for the death of millions of people.
Tiger Woods will win three Majors this year, but he royally screws up his life in a few years. (As a result, he never catches Nicklaus). But he’s not alone. You won’t believe what comes out about Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Jared (the Subway sandwich guy), Rudy Giuliani, P. Diddy, Prince Andrew, and Matt Lauer. Guess which four of them are in prison today. The rest probably should be.
There’s no more “Be Kind, Rewind” or late fees. All the Blockbuster stores closed. Good riddance. Nobody goes to movie theaters either. A company called Amazon delivers almost anything to our door in 24 hours or less. Everything from Tide detergent to a carburetor for a 1976 Ford Pinto. We no longer have home phones, office phones, answering machines, fax machines or phone books. Long Distance calling is also long gone. You can call anywhere in the world for free.
Most people work from home in their day-jammies. You go months or years without seeing your coworkers. It’s kind of lonely sometimes and you’ll miss your friends at work. (Heads up, we are gonna really hate this in the future.)
There’s a new emerging tech called Artificial Intelligence or AI, for short. It’s hard to explain. You can talk to it like a human. It answers with a human voice. Random stuff like what was the weather on October 31, 2000. It knows instantly. It can instantaneously write a 50-page Term Paper on any subject, and it’ll be perfect. It’ll probably replace millions of jobs. You might think about becoming an electrician or a plumber. Not kidding.
Weed is legal recreationally in 24 states and medically in 38. Most major cities smell like a Grateful Dead show, especially New York and LA. Sounds crazy, but I smell more weed than cigarette smoke these days. Nobody smokes cigarettes anymore. Nobody.
If someone had told me all this back in 2000, I wouldn’t have believed them either. So, buckle up, younger me. The next 25 years are going to be a wild ride full of things that seem impossible but become everyday reality. Stay curious, stay adaptable, and for the love of Pete, buy that Apple stock today. (Oh, and if you think I missed something important please send me an email at [email protected]. I promise I’ll respond.)
Tom Greene is a writer living in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and loyal wiener dog, Maggie. His writing can be found at www.tomgreene.com. He can be reached at [email protected].
